The past week had been... something. Jack was still working it all out in his head, the talk with Anakin, the talk with Rey. It wasn't even - just - the substance of it that kept bouncing around his head.

It was his own tone.

The sofa cushions sagged abruptly under someone else's weight. "I'm happy to let you brood, if you want," Dane said. "But Persistence of Time stopped spinning fifteen minutes ago, so I thought I'd check in."

( Jack eyed the record player like it was personally at fault. )

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If he was completely honest with himself, Jack was still kind of tired after last night. So many people, actually responding to what they were doing, in an unfamiliar place full of unfamiliar people. It was insane to remember that they'd started--

Well, right here, in this bar, with about ten people shuffling up to the front eventually while they made their way through a smattering of metal greats, pop-punk hits and snarky pop covers played at double speed.

Tonight, there were more people - the bar was close to packed - and most of the music on the set list was their own. The clink of glasses, the smell of illicit cigarette smoke and sweat, the wild hair in the audience. It all felt familiar, in a way that hadn't always been safe but had definitely made it there now.

( You'll never guess where we were yesterday. )

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Another day, another show, this time upstate. Dane and Trent had gone on ahead earlier that morning to get to their rental. But a bunch of Jill's gear was still locked up at practice, never mind some of Dane's amps, and so it fell to the drummer and the singer to roll all of their stuff out onto the street while they waited for their ride to show up.

"I swear if short range portals weren't so expensive, I would never drive anywhere again a day in my life," Jack groused, as he attempted to peer over the edge of the kick drum, just to make sure he wasn't about to bowl someone over.

"Oh please," Jill said, as hauled two of her toms over her shoulder. "You're too much of a control freak. You're going to grab the wheel in that car as soon as it gets here and we'll have to wrench it back out of your hands when we get there."

"I could give that up for short range portals." Jack squatted down to set the kick drum down by the side of the road. He stretched up, tilting his head sideways in a desperate attempt to dispell the crick in his neck. "Maybe with some kind of speeder that actually goes up the stairs, so we don't keep having to do this."

( And then we'll get a unicorn... )

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